印度互联网增长 网络商业繁荣

The number of Internet users in India has topped 100 million, fueling the growth of net-based businesses.

印度的互联网用户已经超过1亿人，互联网的发展刺激了网上商业的增长。

When Deepinder Goyal was working at a consulting firm three years ago, he found his colleagues kept a stack of menu cards handy so that they could order lunch from different restaurants. That gave Goyal the idea of launching a net-based food and lifestyle guide.

戈亚尔三年前在一家咨询公司工作的时候发现他的同事在手边保留着一大堆菜单卡片，这样他们就可以从不同的餐厅订餐。这给了戈亚尔开办一个餐饮和生活方式网上指南的点子。

“We scanned these menu cards and put them online," Goyal said. "So starting an Internet venture was actually an experiment and it worked out really well and currently we are getting around two million people just looking up menu cards on our website every month.”

戈亚尔说：“我们扫描了那些菜单卡，把它们放到网上。所以，开办一家网上企业对我来说实际上是一个尝试，结果这个尝试非常成功，目前每个月在我们网站上查找菜单卡的人就有大约2百万人。”

Goyal’s website, Zomato.com, has flourished partly due to an explosion in the food and restaurant business, and partly due to the huge growth in the number of Internet users in India in recent years.

戈亚尔的网站zomato.com之所以这么火，部分原因在于餐饮业的爆炸式增长，还有就是印度近年来互联网用户的大量增长。

India now has over 112 million users - about 10 percent of the country. It is the world’s third largest user base behind China and the United States. With about five million new users logging on every month, the number is expected to reach 250 million in less than two years.

印度目前有超过1亿1千2百万互联网用户，大约占全国总人口的百分之10。印度是世界互联网用户最多的国家之一。每个月新增的互联网用户就有差不多5百万人。印度互联网用户总人数预计在不到两年的时间里将达到2亿5千万。

Subho Roy, head of the Internet and Mobile Users Association of India, says a recent survey indicates Internet usage, initially largely restricted to big cities, is now making rapid inroads into smaller towns and cities.

罗伊是印度互联网和移动通信用户协会的负责人，他说，最近一项调查显示，互联网最开始主要在大城市使用，现在正在快速走进小城镇。

Roy also says many more people are logging on from home and slowly ending the domination of cyber cafes, which were used by people who did not own computers or have access to the net.

罗伊还表示，很多人都在从家里上网，这样就慢慢地结束了网吧的主导地位。网吧主要是没有电脑或互联网接入服务的人所去的地方。

“Last year the old pattern was still there, cyber cafes being top, then office, and then home. So this dramatic change has come about this year," Roy said. "There is a very, very great movement in the home use segment. People are probably buying their own broadband connections and accessing it from their own devices rather than going to common service points.”

他说：“去年，老的上网模式还依然如此，那就是网吧第一，然后是在办公室，最后才是在家里。这种显著的改变是今年才出现的。在家里上网有非常大的增长。人们可能都开始在买他们自己的宽带接入，并从自己的设备，而不是去公共场所上网。”

戈亚尔表示，这种趋势助长了像zomato.com这样的网上生意。

“Earlier we used to see that around 50 to 60 percent of our traffic used to spike at lunches on weekdays. That was due to corporates [company employees] accessing our website when they used to order lunch. Right now, weekends are also very heavy traffic for us,” Goyal said.

他说：“早些时候，我们通常看到每到工作日的午餐时间，上网流量就会增长大约百分之50到60。这是由于公司雇员订餐的时候，都使用我们的网站。现在，我们网站的点击流量周末也非常大。”

Many others are benefiting. Online shopping, for example, is on the rise. Young people who started by booking movie tickets and air tickets online are ordering mobile phones, laptops, books, and accessories such as watches on the net. An industry survey indicates the online retail business is growing by 35 percent annually and will reach nearly $1.5 billion by 2015. Nearly half the customers come from smaller towns where wealth and aspirations are growing.

很多人也因此受益。举例说，网上购物，正在兴起之中。开始网上购买电影票或者机票的年轻人也在订购手机、笔记本电脑、书籍和手表这样的用品。一项业界调查显示，网上零售业每年增长百分之35，到2015年将达到15亿美元的水平。其中将近一半的顾客来自小城镇，那里的富裕程度和人们的渴望都在增长。

Facebook said this week it expects India will top the number of users in the coming years. Currently, there are 30 million users of the popular social networking site in the country.

脸谱网站本周说，预计在未来一些年里，印度的用户人数将达到最高水平。目前，在印度有3千万大众社交网站用户。

The number of people in India who own computers remains limited. But nearly half the country’s population now has mobile phones, and many of the country’s new users are expected to access the net from these devices.

在印度，拥有电脑的人数依然有限。但是该国将近一半的人口现在拥有手机，印度很多新的手机用户预计将通过手机上网。